This invention relates to a rescue device for the safe and rapid evacuation of a building during an emergency situation. Fires and other emergency situations require immediate action to safely evacuate the building and minimize injury to individuals trying to escape from the building. The problems with respect to such disasters have been more serious in multi-story buildings as evacuation is much more difficult than that of a single story building. As it is well known, elevators in the multi-story buildings can not be used safely when a building is burning. Also, staircases become unusable due to smoke or lack of lighting due to electrical disruption from the disaster. Although a fireman's ladder may be able to reach some of the lower stories, there are numerous buildings that exceed the ability of any fireman's ladder to reach and can evacuate a small number of people per hour. The rescue chute allows many more individuals to be evacuated per hour compared to the ladder truck. An evacuation with a ladder truck requires a fireman to help get the individuals down the ladder and approximately 6 people in an hour make it safely. With the rescue chute one person every 17 seconds may be evacuated at a height of 100 feet. Additionally, a response from a fire rescue unit may not be sufficiently timely and the height at which an individual can safely jump is also substantially limited. There are numerous documented cases in which hundreds of lives were lost in multi-story buildings because the individuals have been unable to safely evacuate that building before the loss of their life. There are numerous methods that suggest various means of resolving this problem, however they leave much to be desired. In Curiel, U.S. Pat. No. 4,531,611, it is suggested to utilize a platform system in which the members are attached to an endless conveyor system to lower individual to safety during an emergency situation. This system has substantial drawbacks in that a separate structure must be built to house conveyor system with the platform members and is an expensive system. In Leisman, U.S. Pat. No. 4,681,186, a double chute system is utilized relying on the friction on an individual inside to slow his rate of decent. This system is not beneficial for use by small individuals or children. In Curiel, U.S. Pat. No. 4,778,031, it is suggested that a double chute that is tapered near the lower end. This is a problem as an individual utilizing the system from a substantial height may not be able to slow sufficiently to eliminate injury when reaching the bottom. In Tracy, U.S. Pat. No. 4,099,595, a chute is suggested with semi-cylindrical band throughout the chute that is expensive and is not easily transported.
In Reece et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,320,195, the rescue chute lacks the ability to be easily stored and transported and cannot be operated by most individuals without substantial instruction. Also the within chute is a simple chute and a heat shield is optional and would be only required in extreme cases.
Most of the current aerial ladders and rescue platforms are limited in the height that they can reach and the number of people that can escape is relatively limited. These devices do not lend themselves to the rescue of disabled, injured or elderly individuals.